


Counting Sheep

by Wordsdear



Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-05
Updated: 2017-10-05
Packaged: 2019-01-09 05:29:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12269856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wordsdear/pseuds/Wordsdear
Summary: After his injuries on Drum, Sanji talks in his sleep and Doctorine knows more than she lets on. Aka I have Doctorine head canon and you all have to suffer with me. Set during Drum Island but spoilers for Whole Cake Island and the Sanji flashback in it





	Counting Sheep

**Author's Note:**

> Major thanks to novicecomcis for reading it over!

White. it spun overheard, not snow but an unfamiliar ceiling spinning around like a plate on a stick. Someone should really get that checked out. Everything but especially his back, ached. Had they done it again? A small pink figure bobbed by in his peripheral vision and it clicked. She was treating him like always. Why did she even bother. Wait, this was wrong, Why was he back, no. Not like this, he had come so far. The small figure waddled past where it had been circling his head, and reached out towards his bandaged side. Quick as an unwatched pan boiling over Sanji grabbed the hand, except it wasn’t the soft hand he expected but a cold hard substance. Before he could ask anything, the small figure grew before his eyes and his hand was clutching fur and then nothing. The now large figure bolted out of the room squealing as it went. Coming to his senses a little, Sanji shook his head, He wasn’t back, This was Drum, the chill in the air proved it. Who or whatever that was, it wasn’t her. The mountain had broken his back, not those three laughing faces. Glancing over, he saw Luffy sprawled out on a nearby bed. Everything was fine. He took a deep breath and the motion made his back ache. A figure appeared at the door, a tall old lady with a wicked smile who asked

“So do you want to know my secret to staying young?”

“What?”

He tried to sit up but she held out a wrinkled hand for him to stop. Looking at her closer, she appeared to have a belly ring, he must be delirious.

“My son was just finishing up your treatment. He told me something interesting, apparently you’ve been counting in your sleep”

He thought he'd broken the habit back on the Baratie, grinning he tried to laugh it off as he had back then

“Counting sheep, or no ladies, I was counting ladies”.

“”That’s for trying to get to sleep, not while unconscious. This wasn’t normal counting either,”

Just like Zeff she saw right through him, and she continued

“ich, ni, yon, rei, you seem to skip three every time. Now why would that be? The girl in the next room over keeps asking about Sanji, that must be you right? And you always seem to end at zero. Those are some interesting eyebrows you got there. Awfully familiar. I am a pretty good judge-“

Sanji didn’t flinch but his back twanged and her grin widened as she continued

“ I am a pretty good judge of character, so I know you and your little friends probably don’t mean any harm, so let me set one thing straight. If you were sent by that man to try to recruit me back to his silly science squad or to experiment on my son, I will bring down his precious Germa dream with my bare hands. Is that clear?”

“I have no idea what you talking about, old hag”

He just barely rolled away from her kick, what kind of doctor attacked her patients? Seeming to have given up on kicking him to death, she smiled at him again. Or techinically speaking, she had never stopped.

“Let me ask you one thing, does Vinsmoke mean anything to you?”

Sanji gulped but his reply was easy “That name doesn’t mean anything to me” the hag watched him carefully.

“Did I say it was a name?”

And with that she spun on her heels and was out of the room, calling after her

“Are you happy?

As easy as breathing he replied

“Yes”

He thought of the prison where he ate gourmet food under candle light and cried in the dark. Of the wide open sea and pinching himself till he bled as he watched the waves trying not to think of the delicacies offered in the cell. Freedom always has a price. On the Baratie it was the All Blue calling his name as he cooked to his heart’s content, and then Luffy showed up. Suddenly freedom didn’t see all that bad.

“Oh and did I forget to mention? The Doctor’s fee is your ship and all the money on it”


End file.
